


Right reasons

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Denial, Dubcon interactions, M/M, Made up Backstory, Mind Control, Pitch flirting that veers on bullying, Vacillation (One sided), character analysis kind of, mentions of others - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-15 16:15:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29811057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Nitram should be of no concern, really. And he isn’t in the grand scheme of things.So you’ve looked at allaspects for the miracle of strategy and decided plainly that he shouldn’t matter and didn’t matter because of it.Well. Until now,  you guess.
Relationships: Kurloz Makara/Rufioh Nitram
Kudos: 3





	Right reasons

You like Nitram, but it’s not for any of the reasons anyone would expect of you. It’s rather the feeling he gives with the calm fire to his brown eyes that you read as strength even when he doesn’t consciously account for it, which is most of the time.

Of all the trolls in your session that you are on the lookout for, he isn’t one you’ve been very close to nor kept tabs on because thus far encounters with him have proven non-essential and inconsequential to the plan. 

His quadrant dramas strike full of irrelevance if not for what they have taught you of him and led the Demoness on your Lord’s path. 

You’ve had a hand in the guiding of your own quadrants, busy with your Mage enmeshed in the faith by now, and your destroyed Heir still at your side as well as the aid for the Lord’s coming and the Bard’s holy work laid out.

You’ve kept close eyes in the past on the young Empress before ruling her and Serket’s efforts down as a joke or an insult at best, seeing as to how it took them long enough to get the gears in motion and even try to control the directions and turns of their undead life, while you have been building your catacombs for sweet upon quiet sweep of blood and sweat.

Through Mituna, you know enough about Latula; Through Meulin’s strange recent ties to Horuss, enough of him, and Ampora’s stopped being a nuisance due to his potential optimism a long time ago after your talks with him, so you also rule them out as of no concern. Of Maryam and Vantas there is no care nor worry.

Nitram should be of no concern, really. And he _isn’t_ in the grand scheme of things, just like them. He presents himself as more of a coward than they believe him to be and this is a safe bet, a comfortable one.

He doesn’t need to have the confrontation by painting it to the world that he can’t, a symbol of your social mores he could easily be if not for how you see the way he never hesitates to have a strong opinion on his hobbies, see the fire between himself and those that push him and even when he backs off, how he does it stubbornly.

You see how he dawdled away his afterlife in games and anime and relational entanglements that have led nowhere and you knew him to be slow but he shows no desire to change things.

So you’ve looked at all of these aspects for the miracle of strategy and decided plainly that he shouldn’t matter and didn’t matter because of it.

Well. Until now, you guess.

  
  
  


What possessed him to come to the lily pads to seek and ask you of all trolls about things beyond the game you have no knowing on, no anticipation, but you humor him enough to sit there and stare and listen.

_“Hey dog...could I ask you something?”_ In awkward silence he seems oblivious, careless scratches to the back of his head as he addresses you.

It’s strange seeing him in thought. 

_“Do you ever wonder… what kind of person do you want to be? I mean...outside of expectations...you dig?”_ he asks you, and it is out of the blue. And ironically late as always seeing as this bit of self reflection would have served him plenty while you were all alive inside the game.

You have wondered, after all, since long, and you know. Not only do you know, but you’re on your way and failing isn’t an option. You don’t tell him this. Your lips draw from a smile to a tight line. Instead, you give him your hands signing fast,to the point:

_“I desired to have complete authority over mine own self.”_ He doesn’t rush to reply, takes it in- you wonder for a moment if he knows enough memesigns to understand you but the less he knows the better.

The air in the bubbled between you rests twisting to awkwardness, you don’t like it. 

You don’t know what spurs you to advise him, maybe boredom, as you add shrugging:

_“Prove things only to thine own self.”_ and you gesture vaguely to him. _“And no soul takes it from you.”_ You smile at him even if you make it offhanded. And it’s true as it sends you spiraling into the familiar swirl of faithfulness and disappointment you handle your own existence with. 

He seems thoughtful yet oblivious still and again you decide you care not when he shrugs dejectedly.

You hear _“Thanks dog...I guess…”_ and think that’s that. You made it a point long ago to keep it short with him, even if things bother.

So afterwards, you try to put it out of your mind, but you’re thinking about him no sooner than three memories worth of undead time because you don’t know if he motherfucking makes a move on his existence in which direction it will be. 

It’s odd thinking of him again of all trolls, not that he’s someone you ain’t thought of too closely before, but the last time your considerations were on him this much it had been different.

The memories make you cross your arms, a barrier to mull it over.

It’s not that he’s an unattractive motherfucker or uninteresting, because you have an eye for spotting the most miraculous of sights in the shape of skin and blood and colors. Your world is sensational and symbolic enough that when you see him you are in a sort of awe of his copper wings, their translucent shine and the paradoxical stability of those motherfucking horns and you know you’re looking at someone magnetic enough when he turned and smiled lazy during the sweeps.

It’s the body language, the open movements. 

He’s a damn treat just because he takes his winding time with every sheepish movement and development he does, smells like the forests of his bubbles and is just a little _too warm_ looking and such is his Messiah given aura, so you know what you’re looking at and what everyone means in being drawn to him. 

And even if he may be more in tune with the nature of his surroundings than he is in his awkward interactions as that holds a familiar charm to you, you have still seen, held and fucked _pretty_ before with your former matesprit, and you can see behind it so this is not a surface thing. You decide in the ruminations to observe him again, just in case- even if you already know why.

It’s because you like Nitram, but you fucking hate thinking of him because he isn’t conscious of his strengths and doesn’t look like he wants to be and it’s downright _infuriating_ . It’s exactly that quiet strength he carries that he doesn’t acknowledge that drives you to him and the very reason you know he’ll deny you again. You don’t much give a shit about his pretty face- _albeit you can always appreciate good features as much as the next troll if not more_ \- your scars and the ones that make up your immediate circle have you looking beyond physicality. 

You know yourself for the intimidating atmosphere you have taught yourself to carry, you bring both your mirth and your silent rage with you like a cloud and dress yourself in it so no one will question you.

Rather, it’s because the best miracles remain in secrets, between the lines, because you are heavily acquainted with how much of communication isn’t all surface that you’ve started to take an interest in him once again.

You seek him out curiously with pan and undead eyes across the bubbles and it’s predictable what you find, way in which he wiles away the rest of afterlife as you left him and as you thought. He still sticks mostly to his own spaces, which you can respect. 

You catch his frame flying to spend evermore time with beasts than other trolls and wonder if he’s concealing himself in the tree mazes to stay there for the purpose of indulging in lifetime memories or to get away from them all.

His desire for change as he manifested it to you may have been momentary and an incipient, incomplete conclusion, you think. But by the time you meet your Mage again and he’s there with the Page you realize there’s factors holding him back from surfacing into something new.

In the twilight of his dreamscape he seemed more himself and rooted. When he’s here with horsebro who starts talking about trying to rebuild their relational burning effigies he don’t seem so grounded though, rather skittish and avoidant like with an edge of desperate you can barely sense. 

  
  


He’s being pushed into something after somethings all unwilling, you can tell and you hate the fakery of it. Especially when they drop over to yourself and your kittybitch and he extends a hand out with an offering towards you. It’s an anime dvd from his collection brought to your face. 

You hadn’t asked, and you quirk a brow. And you’ll have to have a talk with Meulin as you sense her pan shifts _amused_.

_“I bought you something to say thanks for the advice.._ ” He looks like he doesn’t wanna be here.

You know Meulin must have instructed him, ever as she tries making rounds with her redshipping magics. At times her efforts may even hold things together if not for your shadowed dabbling. 

You sigh and glare at him. _“Don’t need it.”_ And you gesture with your hands for the clear negative _emphasis_. Maybe if he sees what being assertive looks like spelled out he’ll grab the vibe of it from underneath his skin, because you sure can feel his annoyance with you all.

Tips of his ears drop and he seems scared instead, all cagey. A brief moment of that flashes through his eyes like he really wants to go back and be alone. He retreats the gift and a few seconds later makes some excuse to get gone. _Classic_ . He _pisses you off._

  
  


It didn’t use to be this way, though. You’ve liked Nitram once before, when you were very _very_ young. Not a memory you’re proud of or like remembering at fucking all. You’d been more pan and pusher fragile then, no more than three sweeps old and much more alive. Stuck in an abandoned hive and your lot making the rounds into what it has grown to be now, you’d been barely old enough to understand the world you were hatched into did not look kindly on your being made up of more violent fear and bitterness and nightmares and lonely screams than any young troll with the nurturer roles desired in your society.

You didn’t know yet you’d have no real place anywhere and no one to help lest you fend for yourself, that you’d need to care for them but they may or may not care for you. 

You remember the slow yet certain resignation that you ain’t fit to care for anyone and the growing mistrustful independence you’ve worn since those days, and that is coincidentally when you remember him first meeting you.

You remember mainly, the envy you felt for his carefreeness and wanting that ease all the same.

He’d come along with Damara and at that time, Meulin whom you would try to hold onto from said meeting and until the afterlife. 

He was defending a game he would play on the outskirts that was found for even fresher grubs. He didn’t seem to care about being judged,and they looked up to him. You did, _too_. 

You’d thought him too _bright_ and confident in those simple acts compared to your messed up livelihood, a quiet threat, someone too dazzling you may look up to but don’t deserve to, and it was upsetting.

He was then the first to like the beasts around the area. Nobody supported him in that. You checked it out yourself but were too lost and bitter to properly give a fuck on befriending any, and yet you felt the connection. 

He had been _himself_. You wonder where that went, knew it to still be buried somewhere in him. 

You’d told him you found him pitiful a few sweeps past that with real hope, too late and little lip service even as you could speak back then, compared to your true meanings.

It tastes bitter now to remember how easily he had brushed you off believing you were saying it for the same reason everyone else did, because he has a pretty face or some shit, but what the fuck _ever_ for the vain motherfuckery. You’ve died and grown.

Still it rings in your pan at times whenever you think on him too much, like right now.

_“I don’t know, dog… you don’t know me that well, right? I’ve been getting a lot of attention and I’m sorry… I don’t wanna be rude cause we had some good times, all four of us.”_ was all he had said in response to your pusher’s confession. You thought maybe he was right then.

It seemed perfectly reasonable, so you had resigned and stepped away, humiliated and frustrated but the faith had kept you moving through worse and you had more important things to do than try at quadrants since you’d never been a good fit for them to begin with. _Fuck him_.

You did like him for those invaluable aspects, _however_ . And you _still_ do. The afterlife both has and hasn’t changed you all that much depending on what’s at stake. Because you kept active and observant you would like to believe you have become less prone now to those humiliating situations.

In death your brother of faith has been most illuminating, sparked an understanding in you you haven’t felt prior. The darkness aligned and you felt your purpose. Seeing him means everything you prayed for has been real. It means you haven’t prayed in vain and you can start working for something with tested meaning under the hemocolors’ dance and watchful eyes. Even as you have your conflicts of fate with him, he has gifted you something priceless.

You don’t know what sets this forward rebounding motion in you, maybe it’s the tension bubbling from all these awkward instances where you’ve considered black flirting at him before and him angling for some sort of change now.

You’re always very careful, since you are aware that anyone no matter who they might be, could bring your undoing. You remind yourself thus, not to underestimate him, to keep warry. The memory of the strong hit Mituna’s psionics had on you that night when they sent you flying, bleeding and you had to feel your moirail’s brain melt in his skull under your hands if only to hold him down to withstand the electricity- _because you couldn’t let him take away the promised fate from you-_ is always vivid in you. 

Thus for the most part you keep your machinations secret, but now that you’ve finished holy work for the nights, the plans are in motion and _nobody_ can stop the prophesied end, you have too much time on your hands and you….wonder.

You see Rufioh’s bronze wings pass by when it’s you and Meulin, her under your Voodoos at the moment, and this is usually your cue to _stop_.

You _continue_.

And you let the glow in her eyes shine bright. It’s nothing malignant this time - _you’re humming an old sweet church melody in her head_ \- but it’s enough to make her dazed and bright eyed and you notice the exact moment when he stares and figures out something may be amiss by the slump of his shoulders and his surprised expression surveying you two.

His eyebrows draw down and he turns alarmed at you for the first time. You chuckle to feel him annoyed again as he turns to walk away and pretend he didn’t see. 

Worst he can do is tell Serket you’re up to something, but you know he won’t and she wouldn’t believe him anyway.

It goes on like this then, you decide. You find a new hobby in teasing him in a fluster-pitched up way. Every time he passes you you smile at him knowingly and let his suspicions grow. You’re very used to settling those down, so you can’t say the adverse isn’t a bit exciting and novel. 

You try, on purpose and as much as you can to creep him out when he already feels trapped and cornered. You wish you knew his worse memories to play them by thread but you don’t overstep for now.

You do chuckle at his expense every time he’s metaphorically stepped on. Not much else to get a motherfucker to fight you other than an upfront solicitation. And you’ve got time to drag this out so you don’t need to risk that. 

You like him, but you sure as fuck aren’t gonna give away that you do just yet. Even if he’s gonna think you’re being _trolldere_ or whatever the fuck stereotype in those animes he was rewatching the other memory night bears to fit.

Few more cycles and you succeed in making him be on edge with you for long enough that he finally tries facing you. You could motherfucking _swoon_ to see him walk up pissed.

_“So ...I’d appreciate it if you could back off a bit, dog. I mean. I don’t want a problem.”_ He still says it softlike. If that’s all he’s gonna give you you can’t take it too well.

_“That so, motherfucker?”_ You sign, and tower.

He stares up at you defiant and your pusher does skip a satisfied beat.

_“Yeah. I want you off my case.”_

You do leave him alone a bit after that. It’s progress to hear his genuine will.

You don’t tag along, don’t visit near him as often, basically disappear and make hush more than usual. He comes looking curiously when you’re next to Meulin and Latula one day. This time he’s looking for Meulin’s eyes first thinking you don’t notice, checking for traces of your work. You give him the most innocent face you have to show and he looks away.

It doesn’t take more than an exasperating amount of time later but what’s that when you’re dead? You know he’s slow as fuck like that.

_“Listen. I know I’m maybe being hard on you...I mean. “_ He straightens, corrects himself. _“No. I mean..Thanks for actually backing off but the thing with you and…?_ ” He hesitates.

You crack your knuckles for emphasis to see him twitch and try to stay imposing.

_“You wish to know about the prophesized end?”_ Your hands spell sharp.

_“Oh dang. It was clown talk? I was worried, man…”_ He exhales and starts to relax and it irks you how that bit is blasphemous.

_“You_ **_should_ ** _be. Best not speak of what you ain’t knowing of.”_

That has him glaring back at you in suspicion again and his wings flutter unnerved at the edges.

_“You don’t have to be an ass about it.”_

_“Maybe I’d been trying to procure your ass, think about that?”_ Moment you spell that out in gestures he colors brown tints all over so fast you barely catch the start of it.

_“Ah, that’s… So many of you have told me that._ ” He lifts arms up to put distance to explain, to make it easier again. _“I don’t wanna break your heart or anything...but I did tell you before. Don’t think you really mean that how you think, dog.”_

If it’s going to be this motherfucking shit again, you won’t have it.

_“You and our horse motherfucker been trying to break that off for a while now._ ” You remind painfully. _“And unlike you.”_ You stop signing and give him a dead stare. _“I_ **_know_ ** _what I be meaning.”_

He’s looking agitated and downright guilty. The latter is _strange_. But you don’t feel like you’re being rejected again. Next thing he says at you is an admission that takes you by surprise.

_“Not now. Fuck…Meet me later.”_ He looks you up and down and parts his lips subconsciously while doing so before disengaging. 

You blink. You didn’t expect him to be into it. And not now is better than never. All of it seems better than never.

  
  
  


When it’s “later” you’re starting to come to terms that maybe you have been liking Nitram a bit too much all along. 

You ain’t stupid enough to pitchflirt at him using too explicit details of your goals after this, nor to carry his ass to your secret sacred spaces, but you allow yourself the mindless joy of getting into his pan when you manage to get him to agree to visiting your dreamhive bit too often after this merry confession. You’re indulgent enough to ask through mindspeak _HOW ABOUT NOW?_ directly and relish in the firmer nod he gives, enough to delight in him writhing under the fears of your eyesight way too easily.

It doesn’t quite kick in with full weight that you’re getting carelessly giddy until after some more time, when it hits too sudden that the more he remembers of how you’re starting to treat him harshly the more he can realize of your bigger workings. It hits when you finally have him thrashing his head back and moaning and you’re making out, you’re trying to pour into his head what you can do to him and he’s rising to the occasion.

Your grip on him pulls a bit too tight then and then slacks after. He stumbles bruised and puts feet between to catch his breath. 

When you look back to him his eyes are clear, too clear and lucid and you realize you’d let go of pushing at his pan with the intent to filter more than halfway through. You can play but he could ruin things if any soul believes him you ain’t harmless. 

You know you have to wrap him back up hazy and oblivious like you first found him and undo your work then. And you try that, too.

The next times you see him he doesn’t remember just as you want it, and it feels like a waste. You try to make him claw at you and hate you but it doesn’t fit and you get no enjoyment of it. When he doesn’t fight you back there’s no real beauty to be had here, nothing of _himself_. And afterwards he ain’t even knowing of his progress if he makes any by courageously handling your shit. 

You strike a compromise with yourself, reason to let him come to you of his own ire and volition, yet quiet those feelings into a more clueless sort once you’re done so he’d still know you detestable, but not in full extent. Keeping a motherfucker _hungry_ pays off sometimes, and if it hurts you partly wanted him to meet you in full but can’t allow it, your holy service is still primary in importance so it should matter not.

The more you meet him to entwine the more you think there may be some truth in him roguelike gifting those around him their freedom. You didn’t have the time to feel this mirthful in a while since you were living and barely even then, you feel warmth spreading in your veins when you look at him.

Sometimes you laugh with him when he finds his guts to tell you off and feels silly for it, when your horns hit each other too hard, and when you should be _crueler_ , and that shit frightens because you rarely laugh in earnest with your quadrants anymore and only your newfound family cheers with you when things are good church money. The vulnerability in this scares you, it strikes eerily close to true pity. You’re having some fun, and you needed this. And you _like_ Nitram.

Mirth is mirth and if he’s its reason right now he does deserve to know, even if he seems taken aback when you bleed an odd sort of in between for him that’s just your fondness multilayering. Even if it harms when you have to erase all that from his mind in the end to keep him coming back unknowing.

You feel free again, maybe too much and you hope you’re liberating something of him,too. Because your pan can’t stop listing all the things you still want to do with him now that you’re close to the flame and letting it burn.

He’s pushing back regularly now. He’s not going to fight you much but you enjoy every mark he lays on you. You kiss him when he does make you bleed. You slam him hard against the murals in your memory hive external until you feel him exhale everything and when he glares at you real you feel like you’ve _won_. 

_“I don’t understand what the hell you want from me!”_ he finally yells at you one night that’s been building up from it all. You feel proud of his anger but then hold him calm and look at him with barely disguised admiring interest. He’s _himself_ again, but it _cost_ you.

It’s a combination of things, you admit. All you really can say to him as you cut him short, undo his vest and pants and start going down is that you think you may _like_ him, after all. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I have had this in my drafts for soooo long. I know it's not the best piece but I just wanted it out of there. Probably going to be something I post and get that instant 'I could have done more about this' feeling but hopefully not. And hopefully there's still people who like this ship and want to see more of it because I sure do.


End file.
